Tag: creativity

Here are some amazing brain facts that you should know. The brain is an amazing organ and its use (or not) is at the very heart of creative thinking. But what do we actually know about the human brain? Well very little it turns out. This is until you do some digging and unearth a few facts. Here are just some that I uncovered whilst researching my radio show this week.

1) Your brain accounts for roughly 2% of your body weight but it is responsible for using 20% of your total energy and Oxygen intake.

2) Our brain cells are not all alike. There could be as many as 10,000 different types of neurons within our brains.

3) Your brain generates between 12 and 25 watts of electrical power which is enough to light up a modern LED light bulb.

4) Were you drinking last night? Did you forget part of your evening? Well actually you did not, when you are drunk you cannot form memories so in fact you had nothing to actually remember.

5) Our brains are 73% water so it is not surprising that becoming just 2% dehydrated affects our memory and other cognitive skills.

Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino firmly believes that being a rebel with a cause will boost your career and enrich you personally.

The professor conducted a study of more than 1000 employees. He found that less than 10% worked at companies that encouraged challenging the status quo. According to her “when this happens, workers and their organisations both pay a price”. The price is decreased engagement, productivity and innovation.

Apparently the pressure to conform also increases as people progress in their careers. She states that sheep are easier to manage than wolves. A study on peer pressure by psychologist Solomon Asch found that 75% of people will pick an answer they know is wrong simply in order to fit in.

The professor believes that if we adopt constructive nonconformism and be authentic then this will benefit the organisation that you work for. In addition others respond positively to those who dare to be genuine and authentic. In an assessment of entrepreneurs at pitch contests, those who seemed sincere were three times more likely to win than those who were not authentic.

Professor Gino has 3 tips for us:

Challenge your own assumptions first

Master the past

Start small

If you have any questions regarding being a rebel then please get in touch.

Creativity on the radio has arrived. Some readers of my blog posts or my newsletter will know that I have been talking abut a radio show for a while. Well, now it is here. Coffee With Derek is an hour long programme that is broadcast every Thursday from 1:30pm until 2:30pm BST.

Soak up some creativity whilst drinking a cup of coffee. If you are in the Sheffield area you can listen to Iman FM on 103.1FM. If you are out of range just go to www.imanfm.com and click on the listen live link.

The aim of the programme is to demonstrate how creative or alternative thinking can be used in both a personal and work context to get better solutions to problems and generate better ideas as well as making life generally easier. I also take a look at some news and local issues and give them the alternative treatment too.

Is there a relationship between Creativity and Age? In 1968, George Land conducted a research study to test the creativity of 1,600 children. They ranged in age from three-to-five years old and were enrolled in a Head Start program.

This was the same creativity test he devised for NASA to help select innovative engineers and scientists. The assessment worked so well he decided to try it on children. He re-tested the same children at 10 years of age, and again at 15 years of age. The test scores results were astonishing:

5 year olds: 98%
10 year olds: 30%
15 year olds: 12%

And the same test given to 280,000 adults: 2%

“What we have concluded,” wrote Land, “is that non-creative behavior is learned.”(Source: George Land and Beth Jarman, Breaking Point and Beyond. San Francisco: HarperBusiness, 1993)

For most, creativity has been buried by rules and regulations. Our educational system was designed during the Industrial Revolution over 200 years ago, to train us to be good workers and follow instructions.

Today we measure our childrens’ education simply by the number of exams passed and the grades obtained. Similarly, we grade the effectiveness of educational institutions according to league tables. Not only are we allowing children to become less creative, we are actually helping them to do it.

Later in life, we then tell them they have to be more creative and so we send them on courses or ply them with self-help books.

This is just plain wrong, we need employees with the creativity of 5 year olds. Maybe we should just employ 5 year olds?

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